by David Kiely
The sense of dread had not left her. She rang the doorbell. There was no response; she heard no sounds from inside the house. She rapped on the stained-glass door panel and waited for a few moments more. Still no response. Josie was undeterred; she went around to the patio doors at the rear and tried again. Still there was no answer. She stood perplexed. Perhaps the handyman was a shy person who did not like to be disturbed. As she was turning to go, however, something in the kitchen caught her eye.
The kitchen was similar to her own. The patio doors allowed a great deal of light to bathe the area, revealing a sizable area of floor space to someone looking in. Josie also had a view of the hallway and staircase. But her attention was on the kitchen floor and something quite remarkable.
Shielding her eyes against the glare of daylight and peering more closely, she tried to come to terms with the inexplicable. Plumb in the middle of the pine floor was a lighted candle in a small brass holder, and next to it an open book. Its bulk and the red silk ribbon lying askew across the pages told Josie it was a Bible.
But the house at number 8 was not done with surprises. She discerned movement on the staircase. What she took to be a bright orange “ball of light” was swiftly descending. “It certainly wasn’t the reflection of the sun,” Josie says, “because there was no sun to speak of that day. It moved with such speed anyway. I got really scared because I thought I was going to see it at the glass. I never ran so fast in all my life.”
Back in the safety of her own home, she recovered by and by, and went to put the kettle on. She thought a cup of tea might settle her nerves. But the calm did not last long. From upstairs came the unmistakable hammering on the shared wall again.
Josie Brady grabbed her coat and car keys and left the house in haste.
A few hours later, Declan and Stephanie pulled into their driveway. The first thing they noticed was the unlatched garden gate.
“Bloody postman,” complained Stephanie. “I know who it is, too. Lar Stewart. He’s in a back-to-work program and he doesn’t much care what he does.”
“I know how he feels,” said Declan, locking his car. “I remember when I was unemployed they made me do that nonsense as well. Slave labor if you ask me. They put me picking mushrooms for an old creep outside Claudy. God, he was a tight old—”
“Yes, Declan.” Stephanie was in no mood to listen to a story that she had heard countless times before. “Just look at our geraniums. That’s Convery’s bloody dog—or Stewart’s big feet. I’ll tell you something: I’m going to read him the riot act tomorrow.”
“Er, it wasn’t the postman,” he said. “Look—no letters.”
“Who was it then?”
“The ghost?”
“Please, Declan! Not even in jest, okay?” And she went upstairs to change.
From the time their troubles began, the couple had made a habit of locking all the doors before leaving for work. At the same moment that Stephanie was putting her key in the bedroom door, Declan was unlocking the door to the kitchen.
Upstairs and down there was evidence of fresh mischief.
Stephanie was staring at the drawers of her bureau. All had been pulled open and the contents rifled. The window was shut tight, just as she had left it. There could therefore be no doubt—their otherworldly visitor had returned.
Downstairs, Declan was struggling to come to terms with the burning candle and the Bible.
Curiously, in those moments, both decided that they would not alarm the other by telling of what they had seen.
With quivering hands, Stephanie rearranged her effects and quietly closed each drawer. Meanwhile, Declan picked up the Bible. It was open at Proverbs. He slammed it shut, afraid to read what might be written there, and stowed it away in a kitchen cupboard. He blew out the candle. If he tossed it into the garbage can in the yard, he reasoned, Stephanie would never know.
He was sliding back the patio door when a thought struck him. Perhaps this was someone’s idea of a practical joke. After all, he was sure that the whole neighborhood and beyond knew about their “problems” by that stage. But he was remembering something else.
Declan was in the habit of stopping for a beer on his way home most Fridays. The local men had gotten to know him. He was friendly with them all, with the exception of one individual: Scottie Byrne. No one seemed to like Scottie. He worked in a shoe-repair shop in town, but he also cut keys. The word was that he could not be trusted. With his knowledge of locks, who knew what he might be capable of?
He had met Byrne the previous Friday, as he was leaving the bar. Scottie was a little drunk.
“Hey, Rooney,” he said with a smirk, “did that ghost of yours ever come back?”
Thinking back on it now and still puzzling over the strange tableau on the floor of his kitchen, Declan was asking himself if the unsavory Byrne might not have something to do with it.
He returned indoors and tucked the candleholder away in the back of a drawer. He hoped his wife would not notice it. He would clean up later. He needed time to think matters through. He made coffee and carried the tray into the living room.
“What’s that smell?” Stephanie asked, coming downstairs.
“Smell?” Declan had not reckoned on the smell. He wished he had sprayed some air freshener.
“A burning smell. Like candle wax.”
“I think it’s coming from outside,” he said. “I opened the back door to put something in the bin and it got in. Somebody burning rubbish or something. So how was your day?” he added, quickly changing the subject.
Much later that same evening, Josie Brady was telling her husband about her strange day. “It’s not like you to go snooping around neighbors’ houses,” he said.
“But it was awful! You’d have done the same, Noel. There’s something not right about all of this. We should do something.”
“What do you suggest we do?”
“Well, you could talk to them. Say there might be burglars in the neighborhood.”
Noel checked with the Rooneys and came away satisfied that Josie had indeed been imagining things. No, the Rooneys had not employed a handyman. Furthermore, they assured him that the house was locked between 7:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. and that they held the only keys. Noel, in his wisdom, said nothing about what his wife thought she saw: the orange light on the staircase, and the Bible and candle. He would have felt a bit stupid relating such things. Even if Josie was mistaken—and he believed that she was—he had no wish to upset the young couple further.
The Rooneys closed the door on Mr. Brady’s retreating back and looked at each other in dismay.
“My God, Declan, it’s coming back!” Stephanie was devastated, close to tears. In her confusion and anger she did not know what she dreaded more: the return of the manifestations or the whole street knowing about them—and suspecting it was somehow the Rooneys’ fault, that they had done something to invite this thing into their home. If Father O’Malley could think it, then why not others?
Declan tried to console her. “Look, maybe that woman was hearing things. You just don’t know with people.”
He thought again of Scottie Byrne and his brief encounter with him the previous week. What if Byrne was behind it? Byrne was laughing. Was he laughing at his own sick joke? Declan did not doubt that Byrne could gain access to his house via the rear entrance; the man was forever bragging that he could pick a lock faster than any burglar and leave no trace. What if he was responsible for that trick with the candle? Why not run upstairs and hammer on the wall for a laugh as well? Annoy the neighbors. Annoying others seemed to be his stock in trade. It was a crazy idea, but Declan thought Byrne was a little crazy.
He decided to share his suspicions with Stephanie. She was not convinced. “That wouldn’t explain the drawers in my dressing table.”
“Oh? What about them?”
“You might as well know,” she said with resignation. “They were all pulled open when we came in. Just like before!”
“Well, th
ere you are then. What was to stop him, after hammering on the wall, messing with the drawers on his way out?”
“I suppose he could have,” Stephanie slowly conceded. “But why would he do a thing like that? We’ve never done him any harm. It just doesn’t seem logical. For heaven’s sake, I’ve never even spoken to the man.”
“I know. But even so, there are some very strange people in this world. Characters who get a kick out of seeing others upset. I’ve never liked Byrne. Wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”
This much Declan said to Stephanie. He was being less than honest, though. He did not believe that Scottie Byrne was the culprit. Nor was he prepared to face the possibility that there were paranormal forces at work. Wooden balls bouncing about the room were one thing; lighted candles and open Bibles in the kitchen were something else again. Ghosts and poltergeists, in Declan’s book, did not do such things—people did. He was considering a number of possibilities. He was asking himself if he or Stephanie had made an enemy of someone without being aware of it. He was asking himself if somebody was trying to frighten them into leaving the house in Cedar Close. For what purpose? Was there perhaps something buried on the site? Stolen money? Something more sinister?
Declan was determined to solve the mystery. He would unmask the intruder. Before going to bed that night, he put his new plan into action. Over the pine floorboards in the kitchen, he sprinkled a fine covering of salt. If somebody entered the kitchen, he or she would leave footprints in the salt, proving that intervention of the human rather than the ghostly kind was at work. He made sure to lock the patio doors, and took the added precaution of locking the kitchen door as well.
While Declan was engaged downstairs, Stephanie was kneeling at her bedside, praying fervently to Michael the Archangel for protection. At the same time, she was hoping that her husband’s sup position was correct, that all this was somebody’s idea of a joke. If that were so, she vowed that the creep would pay the price. Nobody was going to drive her from her own home.
But something woke her in the early morning, in the predawn.
Stephanie sensed that a voice—a child’s voice—had spoken to her, though she heard nothing further. She lay very still, hoping to hear the voice again. Strange to say, considering her fears of the night before, she did not feel frightened. She heard Declan breathing lightly in his sleep and had no wish to rouse him. Perhaps she had simply been dreaming. She lay awake, wondering about the child’s voice. Though her eyes were shut, she was aware of the first light of day beginning to seep in at the window.
Idly she began to think about children and how fine it would be to have a child of her own. She and Declan had discussed it from time to time. The plan was that, in a couple of years’ time, when they had enough money saved, they would start a family. Like so many young women, Stephanie hoped that her first child would be a girl.
She was picturing a delightful little girl in a frilly pink dress and auburn pigtails: a little girl not unlike the toddler she had once been. She saw her clearly in her mind’s eye. The child was running to meet her, laughing and reaching out to be hugged.
What happened next was extraordinary.
Stephanie felt what could only be a small hand squeeze her upper arm. She was wide awake immediately. She sat up in bed and switched on the bedside lamp, even though it was dawn by then. Her heart pounding, she peered at her bare arm, expecting to see a mark there. There was nothing.
She was convinced, nonetheless, of a presence in the room. She sensed that the little girl was still there, gazing at her and her sleeping husband. Gone was Stephanie’s fear; tenderness for the child had replaced it. She sensed a need.
“Who are you, sweetheart?” she managed to whisper. “What do you want?”
Stephanie waited with a hand on her heart. There was no response, but still she sensed the presence nearby. Declan stirred in his sleep.
The atmosphere in the room was subtly changing. Stephanie, for reasons she could not understand, was drawn to the rattan chair beside the bed. Something was telling her that the “spirit child” was seated there.
“What do you want, sweetheart?” she asked again. “What’s your name?”
This time, a response came.
“Sa–rah.” It was the voice of a little girl, a half-whisper of a voice that filled Stephanie with sadness and poignancy.
“I want to help you, Sarah,” she said, near tears. “What can I do?”
She waited and waited. But no answer was forthcoming.
Minutes later, Declan was awakened by his wife’s loud sobbing. He understood none of it. Eventually, as he helped her down the stairs, he learned what it was that had upset her so much.
He unlocked the door to the kitchen.
“Coffee,” he said, since there was not much else he could say. “I’ll make it.”
By this time, it was fully morning. When Declan pushed open the door, the sun was bathing the kitchen in bright light.
Stephanie said nothing. She remained in the doorway, staring with open mouth at the floor. Declan’s plan had worked—perhaps too well. But there were no footprints in the salt he had scattered.
“God!” Stephanie had found her voice at last. “Oh, God.”
Scrawled in the salt, in a childish hand, was a single word.
SARAH
Declan experienced a terrible sense of dread. But anger quickly took its place. He had had enough.
“Who the hell are you?” he yelled. “Why are you doing this?”
The following day, the couple moved out of their home again and went to stay with in-laws.
When Canon Lendrum encounters a particularly difficult case, as the Rooney case was proving to be, he calls on the help of a close friend of many years’ standing. Florence Miller possesses what is known as the “gift of discernment” and, being a deeply religious and devout lady, uses it freely to help others.
Florence accompanied the canon and his wife on their second visit to the Rooney home. As they journeyed there, the trio prayed for a successful outcome. Canon Lendrum was disappointed—and a touch surprised—that his first attempt had not borne fruit. It had seemed to be a fairly low-key haunting, the sort of paranormal scenario he frequently encounters. As Florence prayed, she began to receive a vision. She saw an old fireplace. She did not know what it meant, but knew the design was from another era, perhaps the late nineteenth century. She hoped that its significance would become clearer on their arrival at the house.
Canon Lendrum was dismayed to see how distressed the couple were. Stephanie appeared to have lost weight, and she and her husband looked tired and drawn. Present also at the house were Declan’s parents. In fact, it was his mother who had persuaded him to engage the canon again; she, more than anybody else, was convinced that something unholy had entered her son’s home.
The group settled down in the living room and, over tea, the visitors listened as Declan and Stephanie told of the catalog of manifestations that had plagued their home.
Florence is a quiet woman who prefers to take a back seat at such times. She tends to listen, awaiting signs and indications of extraphysical presences. She held her counsel as the Rooneys spoke of the new developments. She was waiting for what she terms a “signal.” She explains that the signal is a communication, whether auditory or visual, from the “other side.” It helps her to establish who—or what—is creating the disturbance. As yet, nothing had come to her. She allowed the couple to finish their account, then posed a single question: “Is there an old fireplace in this house?”
The Rooneys assured her that there was not. In fact, only one room had an open fire—the room they were seated in. The fireplace in the living room was—as one would expect—of contemporary design.
Canon William Lendrum, for his part, was most intrigued by the name traced in the salt.
“What do you think it means?” he asked the Rooneys.
Declan confessed bafflement. He knew nobody named Sarah, he said—not un
less they could include a girl by that name he had dated when a teenager. The canon pressed him further. Declan trawled his memories.
Florence, in the meantime, was noticing a change coming over the room. It was a sensation she had experienced on numerous occasions; she describes it as a kind of “tightening apprehension,” akin to what one might feel when a thunderstorm is brewing. She could hear Declan’s voice receding, as if someone was turning down the volume on a radio. She waited for what she calls “the happening.”
All at once it came. At another mention of the name Sarah, a pebble flew through the air and landed at their feet on the hearthrug. It had entered through the open doorway of the living room.
The pebble had obviously come from the driveway. But how, with the front door shut, had it managed to materialize inside the house, alone and unaided?
“Somebody’s playing games,” Canon Lendrum announced.
It was the first time he had witnessed an incident of this nature in the Rooney home. Like everyone else, he was puzzled, but the occurrence reinforced his initial theory that a child was playacting, teasing the house’s occupants. He prepared to celebrate a second Eucharist. Since the pebble had been thrown into the living room, he judged that it would be the appropriate focus for the sacrament.
As on the first occasion, the Eucharist progressed without incident. Nothing untoward occurred to disturb the liturgy; no more pebbles were flung. After the service the canon went from room to room, cleansing the house in the name of the Lord.
As a rule, Florence never discloses anything of her experiences to the victims directly, fearing that they may hear things that would undoubtedly cause further distress. Only afterward does she discuss her observations with the canon, and together they look for connections that may prove helpful.
On the return journey to Belfast, Florence shared what she had experienced. She had had two psychic encounters.